Thank god for speakerphone

I was preoccupied by this email from HR, which says that some money will be deducted monthly from my pay, as per directive from LHDN. That email set the tone for my whole day. Checked with LHDN Miri and they confirmed I do not have any outstanding payment. When you try to be a responsible citizen and pay your taxes... and they come and deduct your money for no reason.... that really pisses me off.

Pretty much got that settled through the phone(hopefully), then opened my MAS itinerary for my flight to Kuching, supposedly at 6.15pm. I looked at the date and it says 27th august Miri-Kuching. Not again. Thats yesterday.. thats another missed flight. And this is not the first time. All this waste is driving me nuts.

That also means my return flight to miri, on the 1st september, is automatically cancelled. Like I said I have gone through this before. MAS has this idiotic system, which cancels your return flight, if you missed the "first flight", and you booked the return ticket in one itinerary (huh...what is the term for the opposite of return flight??). MAS is cancelling seats that are already paid by their customers (if for some reason they missed the first flight) and open the seat to other customers. That makes absolutely no sense. And they make double profit from the seat, as it is sold twice.

The last time my seat got canceled "automatically", the MAS staff that I talked to that day at KLIA was definitely the more proactive type and customer friendly. He got everything settled for me and put me back on the flight, no problem.

After work I went straight to the MAS ticketing office at Miri airport. There I saw the course director from our Learning and Development, slouching on the stained sofa of the dated and gloomy MAS office, looking really stressed out and tired. Hes a China national and on his way back to Beijing, and apparently missed his flight to KL. He really looked like he could use a shower.

Anyways, i knew I will be getting nothing from the MAS guys at Miri airport, because I have dealt with them before, they just could not be bothered. Apparently the odds of dealing with the same people at MAS ticketing office is pretty high. Its like dealing with the SAP system... they talk like computer with all the codes programmed in their brain. I heeded their advice to call the MAS toll free line just because I felt like I was talking to a wall. I know for sure how bad it is to call that infamous toll free line, nothing is infamous for nothing. However I managed to get a ticket tomorrow to Kuching, albeit on Mas Wings which transits in Sibu.

After iftar called the hotline and immediately transferred to the IT department which handles internet booking etc. I never got thru to the IT guys, they put me on hold until the line went dead. Thats another record for me. I called again and the cycle repeated 2 more times until I have had enough. I called again, and I made sure thats gonna be the last call that will settle my ticket issue. The whole process took almost two hours!! But I managed to get them to put me back on the flight and that gave me that wonderful sense of accomplishment... but seriously thank god for speakerphone.